Company founder Uli Behringer revealed the news on the Gearslutz forum, where he also defended creating a clone of Moog’s iconic synth by noting that creating replicas is common practice in the music hardware business.

“The general rule and the law clearly describe that technology is free for everyone to use, provided it is not protected,” he said. “You may have a different personal view, but that’s how our society and every industry works – again why the law has been designed the way it is.

“In case of the MiniMoog there is no IP (Intellectual Property) involved as the technology is more than 40 years old and all patents have long expired. As a result, the property is now in the public domain, free for everyone to use. Without this principle there would only be one car or synthesizer manufacturer in the world.

“For this exact reason you will find many companies who are manufacturing replicas of all sorts, including the MiniMoog – simply google it.”

Behringer also defended his position by saying that his company aims at musicians who can’t afford to buy a genuine Minimoog (Moog’s recent Model D replica retails for $3,749).

“It is well known marketing knowledge, that lower cost and competing products do contribute to more awareness and hence stimulate both ends of the market,” he said.

“Our primary customer is not the well-off doctor or lawyer, but the people with much less income. I was a struggling musician myself when I started my business 30 years ago and I made it my mission in life to enable musicians to pursue their musical dreams without financial obstacles.”

Behringer didn’t offer any concrete details on how much the Minimoog clone or what it will look like, but he did mention that the company was looking into packing the innards of a Minimoog into a Eurorack module.

The company is making a big push to corner the affordable synth market. As well as wanting to make a whole range of analog gear starting at $49, it recently released its own analog synth called the DeepMind 12, which offers 12-voice polyphony for under $1,000.